In Amsterdam, conductor Emmanuelle Haïm and director Calixto Bieito take on Handel’s famous Giulio Cesare.

When Rossini’s opera Le Siège de Corinthe was premiered in 1826 in Paris it became a huge success all over Europe. The Rossini Opera Festival presents the opera in a new production from Carlus Padrissa of the Barcelona collective La Fura dels Baus, “which here has one of its most interesting shows” (connessiallopera.it). Artistically “Roberto Abbado holds the ranks excellently and supports a well-cohesive and balanced cast” (L’ape musicale) “where bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni growled fearsomely as Sultan Mahomet, tenor Sergey Romanovsky as Néoclès matched a warm tone with pinging top notes, and tenor John Irvin was self-assured as Cléomène, but soprano Nino Machaidze as Pamyra thrilled most of all, as she purred effortlessly through pyrotechnic coloratura” (Financial Times).

From the RAI Auditorium in Turin, the RAI National Symphony Orchestra, soprano Giuliana Gianfaldoni and mezzo-soprano Cecilia Molinari, conducted by Andrés Orozco-Estrada, perform Pergolesi’s *Stabat Mater dolorosa* and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op. 68 (Pastoral).